


Extra-Ordinary Things

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock gets a lesson in humility, and the wisdom of the ordinary, in a scene following the conclusion of "Study in Pink." Every so often the writers have Sherlock say something not just wrong, but devestatingly wrong. Which is fine when they catch it and do something about it, but when it's wrong and it goes unnoted and it's a key element in one of Sherlock's deductions, it gets to me. So I tried to turn one of the first, worst instances of that into something that's at least meaningful and teaches our smarty-pants detective a bit of a lesson.</p><p>The title is an intentional paraphrasing of a song from the stageshow *Pippin.* "When you're extraordinary, you've got to do extraordinary things," is sung with a break between "extra" and "ordinary." Given how Pippin ends up, it's meaningful and beautiful...and it fit this story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extra-Ordinary Things

 

“No. You’re wrong,” the woman said. Her voice was calm, set, and cold as dry ice—so cold that fog would rise up off it at the least hint of water.

Sherlock glowered at her. “Look for yourself. The interior of the ring is bright and polished. The exterior worn. Serial adulteress.”

“No.” The woman wasn’t giving way. “My daughter was faithful.”

Sherlock sniffed and rolled his eyes. “I’m sure she wanted you to think so.”

“I know so.” The woman’s temper was rising. “I know where she went, and I know what she did. And I know she kept her ring on, because I was there.”

“You’re gulling yourself.”

“No. You are.” She gave him a vicious glare. “Smart-arsed young prat. What do you know about women?”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “I know they can’t be trusted,” he said, then smirked. “Of course, no one can, really,” he added, as though that would soften the condemnation of her sex. “People lie.”

“Evidence doesn’t,” she said. “I dare you—call in that DI of yours. I saw a ring on his hand. Call him in.”

Sherlock shrugged. A face-off over her daughter’s corpse was entertaining, but of limited potential. She was stupid. Ordinary. She had nothing to say. Better to end this now. He glanced at Molly, who was squirming in distress. “Call in Lestrade.”

A moment later the two returned.

“What're you looking for, Sherlock?” Lestrade asked, easily.

Sherlock offered him a long-suffering look, inviting him to share Sherlock’s disgust at the stupidity of the unwashed masses. “This woman believes she can establish I’m wrong about my deductions regarding her daughter. She thinks the evidence of the ring is insufficient.”

Lestrade glanced at him, puzzled. “Ok.” He turned his eyes to the woman standing fierce guard over her dead child.

“You’re a married man, aren’t you?”

Lestrade frowned, but nodded. “Eight years, yeah.”

“You cheat on your wife?”

He gave her an affronted look. “Excuse me?”

“You cheat?”

“No.” His voice was unforgiving, angrier than one might expect. Sherlock grinned to himself, knowing that his own faithfulness was something Lestrade clung to, the moral high ground in an uneasy marriage.

The woman looked at Sherlock. “Tell me what his ring looks like, Mr. Smart Arse Detective.”

Sherlock scowled at her. “What are you on about?”

“Look at his ring. What’s it look like?”

Sherlock glanced over, apologetically. Lestrade, frowning, splayed his fingers wide, giving Sherlock a good view. “Worn,” Sherlock said, grudgingly. “Faint patina of fine scratches and dirt. Unquestionably worn for an extensive period with minimal care.”

Lestrade scowled, then. “Busy man, damn it. And not rich. And the wife wouldn’t be impressed if I left it sitting in the jewelers all the time.”

“Of course she wouldn’t,” the woman growled. “It’s a wedding ring. You don’t ‘care for it.’ You wear it, day in and day out, like you wear your marriage. Now, mister, take it off.”

Lestrade met her eyes, meeting her hot challenge with patience, if some contained irritation. Still, he worked the ring off. The skin below was white, soft, and tender. There was a slight indentation in his very flesh, where years of wear had left an imprint that would take months to slowly fade away.

“Look inside,” the woman growled.

Sherlock and Lestrade both leaned over. Molly was biting her lips, staring at the floor, giving away that she already guessed what was coming.

Lestrade gave a small grunt…almost tiny. Then, very softly, he said, “Clean. Polished bright.”

The woman snorted. “Damn straight. How’s it going to get scratched—the inside of a ring? How’s it going to get dirty? Every time you wash your hands, there’s  a bit of water, a bit of soap. Even if you take it off when you wash or bathe, it’s a damp-wipe to the gold. And every time it moves, every time your hand stretches, every time you grip or grab or turn or twist, it’s polished with the finest buffing chamois in the world: nothing finer grit than soft skin.” She looked at Molly. “You wear a ring, girl?”

Molly shook her head, but said, “I wear a watch. All the time, every day.” She slipped it off, unclasping the metal latch. She handed it to Sherlock. “You see it all the time with jewelry people wear all the time. The inside’s always so clean and bright. So smooth. Nothing scratches it, and it’s always polished.”

Sherlock stared. He scowled. “The preponderance of the evidence….”

“Bugger that,” the woman snapped. “I know where my girl went. You didn’t. Oh, you got ‘Rachel’ right. That’s the one she lost. But there was one before that—the one she couldn’t keep.” She sighed. “Came up regular, whenever she could sneak time. Her husband didn’t know, y’see. The boy wasn’t right, not from the start. She had to put him in a home. And she didn’t want her man to think she’d give him wrong kids, you know? So she didn’t say anything. But she came up when she could, and she always dressed pretty, because he may not be smart, but he likes bright colors and pretty clothes. She always dressed pretty, my girl.” And she began to cry. “I don’t’ care about your evidence. And I’m glad you caught the bastard who did ‘er in. But I’m not having with you saying she was a slut. Not on the basis of a ring. Not when you’re dead wrong.”

Sherlock took the ring from Lestrade and rolled it in the palm of his hand. He compared it to Molly’s watch. He closed his eyes, lips pressing tight together. Then he shoved the two pieces of jewelry back at their owners.

He turned to stalk out, then turned back. Voice tense with frustration and embarrassment, he said, “You are right. I am wrong. I am sorry.” Then he spun away, leaving the morgue like a crow cawing off across a wet, harrowed field, empty of anything but torn soil and ruined shards of stalk.

He’d learned a lesson, though. If you wanted to understand ordinary, dull things, sometimes you had to listen to ordinary, dull people. They knew things the extraordinary only guessed at.


End file.
